So his vain toils he coldly now surveyed; He had but sunk a bolder wing to try; He snatched the weepers from the hated glade, And bore them lightly to the shallop nigh; Then sprang into the stern, and cheerly bade The dusky pilot his deft paddle ply;-- While, shoved from shore, the settling skiff descends Low in the flood, and with the burden bends. VIII. Now with a giddy whirl the wheeling prow Veering around points with the downward tide; Then Waban’s paddle cuts the glassy flow; The mimic whirlpools pass on either side; The surface cleaves, the waters boil below;-- The cot, the glade, the forests backward glide; Until the shadows, moving as they flew, Closed round the green and shut the roof from view. IX. Pawtucket’s murmurs die upon their ears, As through the smooth expanse the swift canoe Drives on; and now the straitened pass appears With jutting mounds that lofty forests shew;-- Each giant trunk a navy’s timber rears; Their mighty shadows o’er the flood they threw, Shutting the heavens out, till glimmering day Could scarce the long, dark, winding path display. X. Deep silence reigned o’er all the sable tide, Broke only by the swarthy pilot’s oar; Under the arching boughs the wanderers glide, And the dark ripplings curl from shore to shore; The startled wood-ducks ’neath the waters hide, Or on fleet pinions through the branches soar; Whilst overhead the rattling boughs, at times, Tell where the streaked raccoon or wild cat climbs. XI. Oft on the lofty banks, from jutting rocks The buck looked wildly on the swift canoe; Oft o’er the bramble leaped the wary fox, With bushy tail and fur of ruddy hue; Or wheeling high and gathering still in flocks, The dark-winged crows did by their clamors shew Where the lone owl, upon his moss-grown seat, Maintained, unvanquished yet, his drear retreat. XII. Far down the winding pass at length they spy Where wider currents, bright as liquid gold, Spread glimmering in the sun; and to the eye, Still further down, broad Narraganset rolled His host of waters azure as the sky; For breezes from the hoary ocean cooled His heaving breast, and, with rejoicing glance, From shore to shore the wanton waters dance. XIII. And now did Williams in his mind debate;-- Should he that night cleave Narraganset’s flood, Or on the Seekonk’s bank till morning wait, And scour the while Mooshausick’s gloomy wood? “Oh, would that Heaven might there predestinate On earth, Soul-Liberty! thy first abode,” (He often thought) “or where, in ocean’s arms, Aquidnay smiles in her wild virgin charms.” XIV.